Politics

VA GOP Nominee Defends Slams on Gays and Abortion

Running to represent the fourteenth century

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Virginia's newly minted Republican lieutenant governor nominee E.W. Jackson says his faith and values inform his conservative stances on issues such as abortion and marriage — and some of his past statements critics are now highlighting as extreme and offensive.

"I say the things that I say because I'm a Christian, not because I hate anybody, but because I have religious values that matter to me," Jackson told reporters at a campaign stop in Fredericksburg. "Attacking me because I hold to those principles is attacking every church-going person, every family that's living a traditional family life, everybody who believes that we all deserve the right to live. So I don't have anything to rephrase or apologize for. I would just say people should not paint me as one-dimensional."